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'Forced' march to reform yields impressive results

By Joan Richardson

Results, May 2005

Copyright, National Staff Development Council, 2005. All rights reserved.

Fifteen years ago, Brodhead Elementary School in rural southeastern Kentucky was a very traditional school where teachers went into their rooms, closed the doors, and taught. "Teachers didn't share with others. We were given a book and told to teach it. Children sat in rows and teachers mostly lectured," said principal Caroline Graves.

Results of Kentucky's statewide assessments showed that Brodhead was "at the bottom of the barrel," said Graves.

When the Kentucky Education Reform Act (KERA) was enacted in 1990, the then-principal used it as an opportunity to force change in the school. "He forced us, and I say that quite literally, to come out of our classrooms. He put us in teams. He required us to meet every day. It was painful," Graves said.

Now, Brodhead is one of eight Kentucky elementary schools held up by the Prichard Committee for Academic Excellence as examples of high-performing, high-poverty schools that have defied the odds.

"There are enough schools that defy the trend to prove that the background of the student body does not have to determine achievement results," the researchers said in their report, Inside the Black Box of High-Performing, High-Poverty Schools.

In a comparison of high-performing, high-poverty and low-performing, high-poverty schools, researchers Patricia Kannapel and Stephen Clements were trying to determine how the high-performing schools became exceptions to the pattern of low income/low performance that is found throughout the state and nation. They found that the high performers scored significantly higher on:

• Review and alignment of curriculum;
• Individual student assessment and instruction tailored to individual student needs;
• A caring, nurturing environment of high expectations for students;
• Ongoing professional development for staff that was connected to student achievement data; and
• Efficient use of resources and instructional time.

In addition, the high performers also shared a number of other characteristics. Each school:

• Communicated high expectations in concrete ways that applied to everyone - administrators, faculty, staff, and students.
• Had a caring, nurturing atmosphere.
• Focused on academics, instruction, and student learning.
• Paid close attention to the state test, but also regularly assessed the progress of individual students and focused instruction to meet student needs.
• Had a collaborative decision-making process.
• Had faculty and staff who worked with enthusiasm and dedication to meet student needs.
• Was careful and intentional about recruiting, hiring, and assigning teachers in ways that contributed to the high morale and overall success of the school.

"In some lower-performing schools we have audited in the past, there has been an attitude that some students can't learn regardless of what the staff does. We have heard just the opposite in these successful schools. They all have the attitude that they must find a way to teach these students and that they can do it," reported one of the audit team members.

BRODHEAD'S TRANSFORMATION

Brodhead's story of change may not be typical, but it is instructive, said researcher Kannapel. "The principal who was in place when KERA began was autocratic in his approach. But Caroline Graves believes that his work was critical in making the transition," she said.

Graves concedes that the former principal "sounds rough … but he would say, 'If I can get you all mad at me, then I can join you together as a team.' He pushed us to become a family."

And, in fact, that's exactly what happened. "The culture is what impressed me at this school. It didn't just happen overnight. It has come up through the years. It is a tradition," said a site team visitor.

Initially, teachers were told they were required to meet with each other. They were told they had to work in teams. They were told they could no longer use outdated textbooks - they would have to find resources themselves. When results of statewide assessments arrived, the principal shared them openly with all teachers.

"He would bring us in, give us the scores and show us how to calculate our own results. The data we were looking at then isn't as good as what you get now. But it was good enough. We did the analysis as a team. We analyzed every subject area, set our goals, and planned our own professional development," Graves said.

"It was sink or swim. In the beginning, we had lots of needs. We were so low in every area," Graves said.

Because of the school's new teaming structure, several teachers had to work together if their group of students was going to be successful. They pored over the disaggregated tests results and identified areas of weakness. Once identified, they figured out what teachers needed to work on in order to improve student achievement. In the process, Brodhead teachers read widely and talked with and visited schools with similar populations and good achievement. That process meant Brodhead teachers developed a great deal of their own expertise about areas in which they were trying to improve.

Initially, teachers focused on improving a single subject area for a year. Their payback was seeing test scores improve in that area. The drawback was seeing scores decline in areas that weren't the focus.

"When I became principal (five years ago), we shifted to becoming more strategy-focused, looking for areas where we could impact more parts of the curriculum," Graves said.

Two separate daily planning times for grade-level groups (25 minutes) and for each team of teachers (35 minutes) keep teachers in close touch with colleagues' work.

Learning in the school also benefits from the physical arrangement of the school which has "pods" of four classrooms grouped together and a looping arrangement in which students stay with the same teacher for two years (K-1, 2-3, 4-5). In addition, 10 instructional assistants support teachers during the daily 90-minute literacy block and by managing students during lunch and recesses.

Frequent school-based assessments are used to identify student needs and students are regrouped as necessary. Sometimes, that means two-on-one or one-on-one instruction, Graves said.

"Often, you see schools analyze test scores and make a plan for the next school year. These people are analyzing daily and changing practice daily," said a site visit member.

The initial "forced" march into reform turned off some teachers who either retired or transferred to another building. "We were left with teachers who were willing to take on the challenge," Graves said.

About the same time, the teaching teams also began hiring new teachers, knowing that they would "sink or swim" together. That knowledge kept them working closely together to grow each other professionally, Graves said. New teachers are paired with an experienced colleague in the same pod and spend a significant amount of time observing and being observed.

"For a long time, we looked at other people. When our scores were (low), we looked at schools that were similar in makeup and scoring way above us. But we also looked at schools that had affluent resources, where the kids went to Paris on vacation. We looked at them, and we learned from them. Now, we're at the top, and it's much harder to find those examples to learn from," Graves said.